This invention relates to a heat or material exchanger for use with blood. More particularly, it relates to an apparatus for carrying out heat or material exchange by passing blood outside a heat or material exchange conduit and passing a heat or material exchange medium inside the conduit, which is suitable for use as a heat exchanger, artificial lung, and artificial kidney.
Prior art known heat exchangers for blood are of the type wherein a heat-exchange tube is received in a housing. The heat-exchange tube is in the form of, for example, a plurality of heat-exchange elongated tubes or a coiled tube. Material exchangers are used as artificial organs such as artificial lungs. They are also of the type wherein a material-exchange tube is received in a housing, the material-exchange tube being in the form of a plurality of gas-exchange hollow fibers for artificial lungs and a plurality of dialysis hollow fibers for artificial kidneys.
Most prior art heat or material-exchange apparatus are of the type wherein blood is passed through the heat or material-exchange tube while heat or material-exchange medium is passed between the tube and the housing. Some of advanced heat or material-exchange apparatus are of the type wherein heat or material-exchange medium is passed through the tube while blood is passed between the tube and the housing. The heat or material-exchange medium used in practice is warm or cool water for heat exchangers, oxygen-containing gas for artificial lungs, and dialysis fluid for artificial kidneys.
In these apparatus, the heat or material-exchange tube or tubes are secured to the housing in a fluid tight seal by applying a potting composition, for example, a polyurethane base potting composition to form a partition.
During the service of these apparatus wherein blood is passed therethrough for heat or material-exchange purpose, there is the risk that the partition would separate from the housing because it can happen that an impact be accidentally applied to the apparatus or the connection between the housing and the partition contain a local area of weak bond. The separation between the partition and the housing is very dangerous because heat or material-exchange fluid can mix with blood after passing through the separated gap or crevice. In addition, it cannot be detected from the outside that blood is contaminated with heat or material-exchange fluid.